Please see the FOR SALE section in my Bio for votives and frames for sale!!!
The following vendor reviews are also posted in my bio.
Ceremony Site- Advent Lutheran Church;
So far they have been absolutely great to work with. They made us feel very welcome and like they actually wanted us to get married there. I know that sounds a bit funny, but there was a couple other churches in the area that did not get back to us about the wedding or membership, or made us feel like outsiders for not being members yet. Advent is also a beautiful space.
Final Grade: A+: Besides having an overly zealous coordinator there that made a few snide comments to some of the wedding party/me/musicians things there were just great. She was super organized though so that was a +.The pastor did an amazing job with our ceremony and it felt really personalized. We were able to choose what music we wanted and what we wanted included in the ceremony and I loved that they had that flexibility. The pastor also had us write down why we were marrying each other and we didn't get to hear the others reasons until the ceremony. That was a really special moment to hear. People remarked that they loved how personalized the ceremony was.
Reception Venue- Links at Northfork
So far, they have been great to work with, and seem pretty flexible! I asked about possibly doing a candy bar, or bringing in a popcorn machine and Stacy was completely ok with that. They also don't have requirements on who you need to use for your cake, so my MOH will be able to make my cake and bring it in.
Final Grade: A+: I loved working with them and their event coordinator was fantastic. She was prompt to respond to my emails and really flexible when I wanted to try new things, such as a popcorn machine. The service the evening of the wedding was fantastic as well. We had the beef pot roast and bourbon pork chops to eat and people were also talking about how delicious the food was. (Northfork uses Wells Catering for their events)I would highly recommend having your reception here.
Photographer- Sara Montour
I love Sara's use of natural light, the vivid colors, and emotions she captures. She is based in Seattle/Tacoma, but originally from Minneapolis and will be coming back in June to do our engagement pictures and then October for our wedding. I am super excited about her. She also has an option to do a stop motion photobooth (I think 2-3000 pics are taken in a 2 hours time frame, sped up, and set to music- totally awesome). She also gifted me one of her for sale prints to use in my Save the Date design- a gorgeous pic and they turned out amazing!!
http://saramontour.com/Final Grade: A+ (Pending photos) I am so glad I chose Sara for my photog. She was professional, easy-going, and timely (both arriving on time and getting the epics back sooner than promised) I also did the add-on option for the photobooth and I am so glad I did that. I have just seen a sampling of the photos from the photobooth but I am so excited to see the photobooth finished product (a stop motion movie set to a song). She is SO talented!Florist- Simply Stated Elegance
I am now super excited about my wedding day flowers. I loved meeting with Jeni and walking through the wholesaler looking at the flowers. She came up with a cost saving option that was beautiful, and I am able to go with her the week of my wedding and pick out the flowers:) Very confident I will end up with something I love!!
Final Grade: A The flowers were just gorgeous!! They were delivered perfectly as promised, and my bouquet was so heavy from all the beautiful flowers, it was getting hard to hold on to during the ceremony
The bouts and corsages were perfectly done. The only reason I didn't give her an A+: I rented vases from her for the reception, and she needed them returned a few days after the wedding. I asked her several days prior to email me her address, and had to send her a reminder email on my wedding day, and I heard back from her way late Sunday night (we left for our honeymoon early Monday morning).
This caused unnecessary stress as if she wouldn't have emailed me back she would have had to wait another week to get them back. We ended up able to drop them off at her place on the way to the airport so it worked out, but seriously annoyed me.Dress- Bridal Accents Couture
Love love love this place! I had a blast shopping here, they have amazing selection and what I thought were really reasonable prices. I had Jill as a consultant and she was very knowledgeable and fun, and not pushy AT ALL.
Final Grade: A++++ I just love this store, and they had the best service!!
Bridesmaid Dresses- J.Crew
I managed to have the girls snag their dresses for 30% off around Christmastime, so they ended up being pretty reasonable. Also, the J. Crew in Maple Grove has given one of my bridesmaids excellent service- she had to exchange a couple dresses there as she found a style/size that fit. They didn't charge her for shipping and also still honored the 30% off on a new style, well after the sale ended.
Final Grade: A+ They had great customer service when one of my bridemaids ordered a couple different sizes/styles and they didn't make her pay for returns. I love the dresses, the girls look beautiful!!
Wedding Scroll- Etsy seller eDanae
So far has been very communicative and easy to work with.
Final Grade: A- The scroll turned out beautiful. She didn't turn around the product in the advertised/agreed upon turn around time, in fact, it was over double that, but I didn't really care because as long as I had by my wedding, I didn't really care. I received it a few days before the wedding. I also noticed her product is similar quality but about half price of other similar products I found.
Soloist- Miss Katrine
Katie is a friend/coworker and sang at my wedding. She sings professionally as well. We only had one song for her to sing, but she sounded amazing and people were actually wishing we would have had her sing more because she sounded so good.
Final Grade: A+
Pianist-Brian Ziemniak
Brian did a great job with the piano. Sounded fantastic and ZERO complaints.
Final Grade: A+
Hair and Makeup-Smart and Chic
We had two stylists, Melissa T and Shelly. Melissa was my hair/makeup artist and I just loved her- she was really good and I felt so beautiful. I used airbrush makeup and really loved it. Shelly was the hair stylist for a few bridesmaids. She didn't get the rave reviews: a couple bridesmaids found she had a really abrupt personality that came off a little rude, and a couple girls didn't like their hair and ended up fixing it themselves later, which I felt bad about.
Final Grades: Melissa A++, Shelly B-
DJ: Neon Express (Marc)
We didn't have much contact with Marc until about a week until the wedding, since we procrastinated on filling out the DJ info. I wasn't concerned about this at all though. Marc did a great job helping us out with the grand entrance and I also have zero complaints about his work. I remember hearing the songs on my "must-play" list and I enjoyed dancing at the reception.
Final Grade: A+
DOC- Until it Looks Right
I was on the fence about paying the money to hire a DOC, and I finally broke down and met with Heather. I am SO glad I hired her, and you should hire her also. She was so good! I also had a great experience with her assistant Danielle (DrDFabio)also. The reception was decorated well, Heather was sewing my ripped dress while I ate dinner, I had zero cleanup to do, and the gifts were brought to our hotel room while the reception was going on. They also saved us a couple pieces of cake at the hotel, which was great because i didn't have any during the reception. They also gave us the memory card from pics they had been taking all day long which was a really nice touch. I think it was over 150 pics on there!! Easily one of my fave vendors.
Final Grade: A+++
Popcorn machine rental- Midway Party Rental
A really inexpensive rental as we rented the machine, popcorn supplies and bags from there, and were able to return unopened popcorn supplies. The popcorn machine was a hit at the wedding. The only downside is that they aren't open on a Sunday so we had to have my parents return it Monday, which was an inconvenience. They also were a bit slow on communication.
Final Grade: A-
Rehearsal Dinner-Rockwoods in Otsego
Setting up the dinner was pretty easy, and straight-forward. They did misplace our file a couple times and had to call and reconfirm our dinner choices. They ended up leaving one dinner choice out on accident, which wasn't that big of a deal because I figured it would have been an uncommon choice at the dinner.
The food and service were awesome! It was the perfect spot for us to have the dinner.Final Grade: A